


fire up hearts that have grown cold

by viverella



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-20 20:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9514967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: Chirrut wasn’t always blind.The day Chirrut lost his sight was also the day Baze lost his faith.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this prompt](http://rogueonekink.dreamwidth.org/1084.html?thread=62268#cmt62268), with tiny, baby bits of dialogue in the beginning borrowed from the rogue one novelization, which if you haven't read it yet, please go do that the first chance you get because it's an absolute delight! this took me SO long to write (thanks @ grad school) and the ending turned out a bit different than I originally planned, but I hope y'all like it!! 
> 
> (also I'm still a v v new baby to this fandom so uh be kind re: any potential errors in canon I'm doing my best!!)
> 
> title borrowed from victor hugo

_‘Are you capable of being good for something?’_  
_‘I have the vague ambition to be.’_  
_‘You don’t believe in anything.’_  
_‘I believe in you.’_

— [Victor Hugo](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1152251-what-about-me-said-grantaire-i-m-here-you-yes-me)

 

 

Later, in a cage in a cave in the hidden in an abandoned temple outside of the Holy City, when Chirrut says, half in jest, half nostalgic for a time that neither of them will ever be able to get back, _Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all_ , to a man with no more faith in a higher power in the world than Baze himself, Baze wonders if that was ever true. Later, when confronted by a man who says back, _Now he’s just your guardian?_ like he would never have believed it if it had been any other way, a man who like Baze these days believes mostly in the _practicality_ of things, in tangibility, in action, in the conviction that people will continue to do and do and do unless you do something to stop it – Baze tries to dig back into the recesses of his mind to remember the old days. Because Chirrut speaks with such conviction, such surety in the world still after all this time that Baze thinks sometimes that he’d believe anything at all, even the wildest myths and legends if only Chirrut would say them. Because Chirrut always speaks like he’s certain where solid ground lies, and the only thing Baze is certain of these days is that _his_ solid ground is wherever Chirrut is. 

Baze looks at Chirrut sometimes, at his unwavering faith in the face of the end of everything they hold dear, and he thinks to himself that it must’ve been in him too, before. It must’ve, or else what would Chirrut have seen in him all those years ago?

\---

In the old days, faith was all Baze knew. In the old days, his world began and ended at the Temple of the Whills, began and ended with daily recitations of passages the monks held onto like the ultimate truth of the universe, the chants Baze could never quite keep up with, the meditations that Baze could never get the hang of, save for the sitting still part. In the old days, belief in the Force made up Baze’s entire reality, so much so that his own personal belief in it hardly mattered, because every day he was caught up in the momentum of it whether he liked it or not, no room to question. It’s not until later that wondering becomes a necessary thing. 

\---

Baze remembers meeting Chirrut, in one of the wide quads where some of the Guardians train. Baze remembers thinking before he came to the Temple of the Whills that monks always took vows of peace, but then one day, he wanders out to the quad and spots Chirrut training amongst all the others and it’s like everything falls away. Chirrut moves like he was born to do nothing else, moving through all his drills with an ease that Baze knows he himself will never understand. Baze grew up in the streets of the Holy City, grew up with six brothers and sisters, and he knows what fighting looks like, and what Chirrut does looks nothing like anything Baze has ever seen. What Chirrut does is full of grace and poise and an elegance that makes Baze think of dancing more than anything else, and even in the midst of other fighters who must be older and more experienced than him, Chirrut stands out. Something about the surety in his step, Baze thinks, or maybe something about how he hardly seems to even think, running through pass after pass on instinct alone. Baze wonders how anyone so young could make something as complex as fighting seem as easy as breathing. 

There’s a sharp whistle, then, that must signal the end of the drills, because each person training finishes up the sequence they’re in the midst of and bows to their sparring partner. Baze watches as Chirrut unwinds long strips of gauze from his hands, and he thinks _oh, okay_ , feeling something deflate in his chest like he showed up to something exciting just a minute too late. 

“Are you a fighter?” Chirrut asks, not looking up from what he’s doing (even in those days, Baze thinks in the later years, Chirrut had that way of just knowing, even before everything changed). 

Baze blinks, unsteady and uncertain, wondering if this stranger could possibly be speaking to him. Chirrut looks over at Baze then and tilts his head just so. His eyes are warm and bright and he stares at Baze with an odd mix of intense focus and childish mirth, and Baze finds himself thinking that maybe it’s not such an ugly thing to have brown eyes after all, because on someone else, finally, it looks rather nice. 

“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” Chirrut says. He waits, and then when Baze still doesn’t respond, he repeats himself, “Are you a fighter?”

“Uh,” Baze says, scrambling to find words that won’t come into his mouth. “No, not really. I mean, I don’t know.”

Chirrut smiles then and he offers, “Would you like to learn?”

And later, Baze doesn’t remember agreeing, but he finds himself walking towards Chirrut anyways and letting Chirrut walk him through various positions and drills, gentle but firm hands guiding and adjusting Baze’s movements. Chirrut is patient and calm, though his hands never still, either correcting Baze’s stance or else demonstrating what to do, and Baze follows as best he can with clumsy hands and jerky, stilted movements, wondering why this boy he’s never met before could possibly want to take so much time to teach Baze something he may never have to use. 

“I’m not really good at this,” Baze says after almost tripping himself for the third time, feeling his face heat up as he struggles time and time again to do the things that seem to come so easily to Chirrut. 

Chirrut smiles and places his hand on Baze’s hip with a firm push to get him to square his hips. “It’s okay,” he says, and later Baze thinks that Chirrut has always had such a soft kindness to him that Baze has never fully mastered. “That’s why we practice.”

They move though another pass, and Baze watches as Chirrut moves and wonders what monsters Chirrut imagines he’ll be fighting like that in the future. 

“I didn’t know that monks did this,” he says, trying to hold his body like Chirrut’s, but Chirrut is slender and compact power, even as a boy, where Baze is clumsier and bulkier and undisciplined, and in the end, there’s no comparison. 

“The Force is in all things, and it’s up to us to figure out where we can find it,” Chirrut says, and he’s young then, even younger than Baze himself, but he’s always been something of a precocious child, and he speaks in a way that makes Baze think he’s maybe already well on his way to seeing everything there is to see in the galaxy, even though Baze knows that Chirrut, like Baze, has most likely spent his entire childhood traveling no farther than the limits of the Holy City. “The Guardians encourage all activities that bring us closer to it.”

Baze stares at Chirrut, at the wide wonder that’s been in his eyes this whole time, the bright energy in every movement, and Baze wonders what that’s like. “You feel it?” he asks, and only realizes after the words leave his mouth that there’s an almost hushed reverence in his voice. “The Force?”

Chirrut smiles, and it’s not pitying like some of the Guardians have been when Baze has fumbled in his lessons but rather kind and understanding, like he still remembers what it’s like to not _know_ like the older Guardians here or at least is trying to. 

“Let’s take a break,” Chirrut says. “Are you hungry?”

And those days, the answer was always yes, because after years of growing up in poverty, Baze still sometimes can’t remember what it’s like to not be hungry, so he takes that as his answer and follows Chirrut back into the temple in search of snacks and that one Guardian who works in the kitchen sometimes and has a distinct fondness for Chirrut, questions about the Force and faith forgotten for a later day in favor of a new friend and the promise of something sweet. And those days, even the possibility of something real in the Force being out there is enough, because he’s young still and sheltered in a world with faith all around him, and even just the suggestion of belief is enough for him to keep going. 

\---

Sometimes, Baze wonders when the true belief started, the kind that started in the pit of his stomach and made its way up to the base of his throat, because he knows when it all ended, knows the sharp demarcation between the old days all about faith and the more recent times all about survival, knows when he stopped having room in his life for believing in things he couldn’t see or touch. Sometimes, in his cynical moments, Baze wonders if he ever really believed at all, but that leaves him feeling so empty, he knows it can’t be true, that it’s just the darkest, wounded parts of him rearing up. Sometimes, Baze only recognizes his faith for what it was in the face of its absence, and he supposes that in the end, that’s the only answer that matters. 

\---

Baze remembers the first time it happens, all those years ago. He’s a teenager then, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, and there’s a night when Baze wakes suddenly in the early morning hours when it might still be considered late at night, and he spends a good handful of seconds wondering why he could possibly be awake before he feels another firm shake and when he looks over to the edge of his bed, he finds Chirrut grinning at him in the dim light. 

Baze frowns and hisses, “What?”

In the dark, Chirrut’s eyes glitter with the sort of mischievous, boyish energy that Baze has come to think of as something that Chirrut alone possesses in such a way. Even in the dim light, Baze can see Chirrut’s wide smile, and he feels something clench in his chest. No one finds the kind of excitement in their life like Chirrut does, Baze thinks sometimes, and despite the fact that they all believe in one way, shape, or form in the ineffability of the universe, no one finds the magic in it like Chirrut always can, all restless fingertips and filled with a sort of brightness that Baze can’t believe is contained all within one person. Baze looks at Chirrut sometimes and can’t believe he’s real. Baze looks at Chirrut sometimes and can’t believe that _he’s_ the one, out of all the people at the temple, that Chirrut chose to befriend. 

“Want to see something cool?” Chirrut asks, his voice low so as not to wake the others but almost bursting at the seams with a sort of eagerness that Baze has never been able to find in himself at the temple.

It’s way past curfew and they’ll get in trouble if they’re caught out of bed and part of Baze wants to say as much, because he’s never gotten the hang of living his life as fearlessly as Chirrut seems to, even with the little things like this. But Baze looks at the breathless anticipation on Chirrut’s face and imagines how it’d crumble if Baze turned him down, and Baze finds that he doesn’t have it in him to say no. He thinks, idly, that there are a lot of things he’d do to make Chirrut look at him like that, but he pushes the thought aside for another day. 

Baze follows Chirrut out of the sleeping quarters where all the young Guardians sleep and lets Chirrut lead him down several hallways and a few flights of stairs. Even after spending years at the Temple of the Whills, Baze still finds himself getting lost embarrassingly often, and when he asked Chirrut about that once, Chirrut who has never in his life struggled with not knowing where to go, Chirrut had shrugged and said something like _when you are certain of where you are going, the path becomes clear_. And then he’d laughed, like it was supposed to be some kind of joke, like they’re both making fun of a kind of philosophical wisdom they can never hope to attain, but Baze watches Chirrut navigate the temple like knowledge of its labyrinthine workings is a given and he wonders sometimes how much of it is an act and how much of it Chirrut truly feels. 

Chirrut pauses at the bottom of the third flight of stairs they sneak down and turns back to Baze with a smile on his face like there’s some secret Baze doesn’t know. “Close your eyes,” he says. Baze hesitates, and Chirrut asks, “Do you trust me?”

And when Baze thinks about it, he finds that the answer is yes, that it might always have been yes, that he’s known Chirrut for over a third of his life now and he can’t remember a single moment he’s doubted Chirrut, not even when they were kids and first met, not even when they barely knew the first thing about each other. Chirrut has always felt safe, and Baze isn’t sure he’d ever felt that before he met Chirrut. 

Baze closes his eyes. He feels Chirrut take his hand a second later and pull him forward into what must be another room, because the quality of the air changes and the dull orange he could see through his eyelids of the well-lit stairwell dims into darkness. It’s quiet and cool, and next to him, Baze can hear Chirrut’s breathing tick up a notch. 

“Okay,” Chirrut says, and Baze lets his eyes slowly crack open, uncertainty nipping at his ankles. 

Baze draws in a sharp breath at what he sees. They’re in a huge chamber, bigger perhaps than all of the other rooms in the temple, and the entire room is filled from top to bottom, from wall to wall with beautiful, shining, clear crystals. Moonlight streams through a small window near the ceiling and hits one of the tallest crystals just so, and the refracting light makes the whole room glow in a steady blue. 

“Are these—?” Baze says, stunned and humbled all at once. His voice is soft and reverent, and something weighty sits in his chest like he’s about to see some great truth for the first time. 

“Kyber crystals,” Chirrut confirms, and he steps forward to rest a palm against the surface of one, tipping his head back like he’s trying to guess where the tallest one ends. 

Baze follows and, after a moment’s hesitation, reaches out a trembling hand to touch one. His fingertips skate across the smooth surface of the crystal, and he finds that instead of being cold like he expected, chilly like the room around it, the crystal is oddly warm, like it has a life of its own. He draws his hand back, not quite flinching, per se, but caught off guard. 

Next to him, Chirrut stands with hands outstretched, pressing his palms to the surface of the crystals with his eyes closed like there’s something he’s trying to find. Baze turns and leans his back against the one of the tall crystals, crossing his arms. Sometimes he looks at Chirrut and thinks that there’s nothing else in the world he could see Chirrut being, that being a Guardian must be in his blood. Sometimes Baze thinks that Chirrut probably feels in a way that few people ever achieve, even the most seasoned Guardians, even the ones who have been trying for decades. Chirrut feels the Force in everything they do, in their prayers and lessons and in their fights, and Baze thinks that Chirrut is probably the rarest kind of person in the whole galaxy. 

Chirrut smiles, apropos of nothing, and opens his eyes, tipping his head to one side to give Baze a sidelong glance. He looks a little like he wants to say _what_ , and Baze can almost hear it, the lilting, teasing cadence it would come out in, but instead Chirrut’s face softens and he asks, “Do you feel it?”

Baze shakes his head no, and Chirrut gives him a look like he’s trying to decide whether Baze is telling the truth or not. He lowers his hands and comes to stand facing Baze, and at this distance, even in the dim light of the room, Baze can see the soothing brown of Chirrut’s eyes and thinks that he’s probably never seen anything so warm. 

“Can I try something?” Chirrut asks, and his voice is softer now, and Baze has learned that quiet is Chirrut’s only tell, that quiet and still is his way of being serious. 

Baze nods now, and he almost jumps when Chirrut’s hands land on his arms, easing them out of their knot. Chirrut’s hands find Baze’s and he turns Baze’s hands so that his palms are facing the crystal behind his back. Chirrut gently presses Baze’s palms against the crystal, keeping his hands over Baze’s like he’s afraid Baze will run. There’s a part of Baze, then, that irrationally wants to tell Chirrut that he’d never run, that this is his place, and he knows this and has known it for quite some time now, probably. There’s a weightiness to this place and this life, and Baze has never been sure what he’s supposed to feel when others ask him about the Force, but he thinks that maybe this is part of it. 

“Close your eyes,” Chirrut urges, and he’s very close to Baze now, his expression open and soft, eyes half-lidded and almost dreamy, in a way. He looks like he’s trying to coax Baze into falling into whatever dream he’s in, too, and Baze feels something leap into his throat. Chirrut smiles when Baze hesitates, and he asks again, “Do you trust me?”

A little part of Baze, somewhere deep in his chest hidden away so even he won’t find it, wants again to say _yes, always_ , but he’s young and his heart is still too tender, so he just does as Chirrut says and closes his eyes. And the thing is, if Baze is honest with himself, he doesn’t always try his hardest when it comes to these things, and during meditation most days, he finds himself drifting off instead of really trying to find the Force or anything like that, but Chirrut presses Baze’s hands to the kyber crystal that’s twice as tall as Baze is and he’s so close that Baze almost worries that Chirrut will see if Baze is lying. 

Baze closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to remember what he’s been taught, trying to find that space of stillness within him. For a long moment, all he feels is the same impatience at waiting for something that he knows will never come, and in the quiet around him, he hears Chirrut murmur something about Baze not needing to try so hard, and Baze thinks maybe that’s always been it, that he’s been searching so hard for this thing that’s the ground for all of his beliefs that he’s forgotten to let himself sit back and let it come to him. Baze takes another measured breath and instead tries to listen this time, to the sound of his own heart beating, to the sound of Chirrut breathing, and slowly, so slowly that Baze hardly notices it at first, he feels something tug in his chest, and then it’s like he can suddenly see a universe made of threads, one pulling at the center of his chest and another that’s Chirrut’s, and the threads swirl around them and tangle with each other and stretch out to the threads of the world around them. Baze’s eyes are still closed and he knows that he isn’t really seeing all of this, per se, but there’s a part of him that’s sure of it, that feels it down to his bones, and he feels something crack open in his chest like relief. 

Baze lets his eyes fly open with a soft gasp, and as his vision clears, he sees Chirrut smiling at him, and Chirrut doesn’t even ask, but Baze can hear himself saying, something breathless and eager in his voice, “I feel it. I do. I feel it.”

Chirrut’s eyes are bright and thrilled, like whatever energy Baze has been able to capture has also found its way into Chirrut, and Chirrut releases Baze’s hands suddenly, lifting his hands to cup Baze’s face, and before Baze can even react or think to be nervous about it, Chirrut is stepping up on his toes to kiss him. And Baze is so stunned he can’t even move for a moment, because he thinks about Chirrut and thinks about how he’s known for a long time now, for maybe as long as he’s known Chirrut, that Chirrut is something special and precious. He thinks about how he’s known for a long time that he’ll never leave Chirrut, even though he worries he doesn’t belong at times, even though he’s not sure that being a Guardian suits him the way it does Chirrut. Baze thinks about how meeting Chirrut changed his entire world, and he thinks he’s wanted for some time now to do just this, and that’s why his answer, whenever Chirrut asks anything of him, is yes. 

Baze comes back to himself in a rush and he kisses Chirrut, messy and overeager, and he’s only sixteen, but it’s like he’s been waiting forever to do this, and he thinks that maybe he’ll never get enough of it, that he’ll never want to do anything else ever again. Chirrut smiles into the kiss and his hands are sure and steady where Baze’s are shaking and overexcited, and Baze thinks that he never wants this to end. His chest feels full to bursting and he thinks he could take on the entire universe as long as he knew he’ll always have this right at his fingertips. He’s breathing hard by the time Chirrut pulls away, just slightly, and he feels like his cheeks are flushed and he hates blushing, but he can’t find it in him to care. He feels giddy and light, and between Chirrut and the warm glow of the kyber crystal behind him, he thinks he’s never felt anything more like belonging. 

“I thought monks were supposed to be celibate,” Baze blurts out when he finds his voice, and later, he’s not sure why he said it, but it’s the only coherent thought he manages to string together out loud, so he just goes with it and thinks it’s probably less embarrassing than the number of mushy things he was thinking anyways. 

Chirrut laughs and he presses another light kiss to Baze’s mouth. “The Force is in all things, remember?” he says, and it’s one of those times when Baze can’t tell whether Chirrut is being serious or not, but somehow he knows that there’s something sincere and real running under all the words anyways. “We’re encouraged to do everything we can to find it. Don’t you feel it?”

Baze laughs then, and it sounds almost too loud in the hollow space of the chamber they’re in. It seems to resonate with the crystals around them and rumble back into Baze’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, and means it, “Yeah, I feel it.”

\---

There are many firsts that Baze discovers in the caves of kyber crystals beneath the temple in the old days, and later, when Baze is in a different cave in a cage where the Holy City fades to a vague smudge along the horizon, he thinks that even now, there’s something about being in the caverns carved out by the Guardians deep within a mountain centuries ago that’s almost peaceful, even if it’s now no more than a rebel outpost. It’s like he can feel it still, the presence of the Guardians of the Whills, of this sacred order that no more exists than does his old home in the temple, and Baze squashes down on the old superstitions even as he tries to find peace. The quiet in his mind, he’ll take, but these days, with the threat of war and destruction building every day, he doesn’t have time for superstitions anymore. 

\---

Baze remembers when the outsiders first begin to arrive on Jedha. He remembers the warriors who come to learn the ancient ways of the Guardians and he remembers the military forces, clad in shiny white armor, who come shortly after. The Jedi, he thinks, he could live with, because after all learning the ways of the Force has never been an exclusionary practice, but as he walks the streets of the Holy City, he hears whispers from the far reaches of the galaxy, that wherever these Jedi go, the clone troopers follow, and it leaves a bitter taste in Baze’s mouth.

Chirrut watches Baze’s skepticism sometimes with a smile, like he thinks Baze is being too dramatic, and sometimes, in the moments he thinks Baze isn’t watching, he watches Baze with a knowing look, like he feels it too, like he feels the uneasiness in the air too like the whole city is holding its breath. Baze wonders if it’s supposed to be comforting, knowing that he’s not just making stuff up in his head. 

They sit in one of the courtyards sometimes and watch the new Jedi train like the Guardians have for centuries, watch them trying to learn the old ways that have been Baze’s whole life since he was a child. He watches them fight like Chirrut often does, and even though they’re the same drills, the same techniques, something about it doesn’t feel the same. Something about it all feels unsettled. Perhaps it’s because there’s a part of Baze that worries that their old traditions will grow warped in foreign hands, no matter that these outsiders come from an order no less ancient than the Guardians’. Perhaps it’s because each Jedi comes with a weapon dangling from their hip powered by kyber crystals that may have come from Jedha, many, many years ago before passing hands over and over and finally reaching the Jedi. Baze frowns as he watches them and worries in the back of his mind about the clone troopers he saw the other day patrolling the streets by his family’s old home. 

Next to him, Chirrut works on fashioning a staff. He’s always used the communal staffs that the temple has for training, but the other day, apropos of nothing, Chirrut suddenly decided that he wanted one of his own, and he’s been working on it almost constantly ever since. Today, he’s polishing the wood around one of the ends where the staff bulges out just so, and Baze thinks he saw Chirrut sneak a sliver of a kyber crystal into the center of it even though they as Guardians are by and large forbidden from taking the crystals for themselves. 

“What’s on your mind?” Chirrut asks, always asking even though he never has to ask, even though he’s always had the uncanny ability to know exactly what Baze is thinking, sometimes before Baze even thinks it. 

Baze grunts and crosses his arms, narrowing his eyes at the Jedi training in their courtyard, the place they first met. He’s not quite a young man anymore and he’s not really old either, but he sometimes feels like it, getting grouchy and worked up over something that’s probably nothing. 

Chirrut follows his gaze and watches the Jedi train for a moment. “You don’t trust them?” he asks, and he sounds like he’s trying to keep his voice serene and placid, but Baze thinks he can detect some undercurrent of the same distrust that Baze feels deep in his own chest. 

And Baze could try to explain the misgivings he has, probably, and at this point he’s thought about it enough to even be mildly articulate about it, but instead, Baze just feels tired. “They’re outsiders,” Baze says, hoping, knowing that Chirrut will understand what he means.

Chirrut hums softly, his hands still carefully sanding down his staff. “The Force does not discriminate,” he says, but he says it in a way that Baze knows means that he agrees with Baze and he’s mostly just trying to pick Baze’s brain. “It is in all things.”

And the thing is, Baze knows this, and part of him really believes it, really thinks that it should be the right of all people to find the Force, but there’s also part of him that believes that there’s a right way to do it, a part of him that’s fiercely protective over their way. “They brought weapons,” Baze says, and thinks that this is the first time he’s ever voiced any of his fears out loud, thinks that maybe that’s the point. “What need do they have for weapons? Jedha is a peaceful city.”

Chirrut runs his fingers along his staff, trying to find the rough patches that still need to be sanded out. “You think it is the fate of weapons to bring violence?” he asks, and he sounds a little like he needs Baze to say something that he himself cannot. 

Baze lets out a long breath and watches as Chirrut’s careful hands turn his newly fashioned staff over and over. He frowns and looks out at the Jedi who train with the same kind of conviction that Chirrut does, and he thinks about the clone troopers dotting the streets of the Holy City with snowy, shiny white armor. 

“I think,” Baze says finally, slowly, like there’s something in the saying of it that suddenly makes it dangerously real. “I think a person with a weapon will always think that violence is not far.”

Chirrut just hums softly instead of answering and continues polishing his staff. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and when Baze looks over at him, he finds something dark and almost sad in Chirrut’s eyes, under his furrowed brow. Baze wonders if maybe Chirrut has had these thoughts too, if he just needed to hear someone say it to make sure he wasn’t going insane. Baze thinks, a little, that it’s almost comforting, in a way. 

Chirrut looks up from his staff and hoists himself to his feet, extending a hand to Baze. “Are you hungry?” he asks, by which Baze knows he mostly means that he’s had enough of this for now, that he’s stopping himself before he gets so far in his own head that he forgets to come back out, that he’ll bother Baze about it again in a few days with more carefully thought out ideas and more insistence and more anger. 

And truth be told, Baze isn’t really hungry, because the gnawing at the pit of his stomach from his childhood has faded into a distant memory at this point, but sometimes he looks at Chirrut and thinks, for all of Chirrut’s strengths, for all of his witty quips and smooth bravado, he’s sometimes a little bit fragile too, like he needs to hide from the world, just a little bit, to get his energy back. 

Baze nods and lets Chirrut pull him up to his feet as well. “Sure.” 

The Guardian who works in the kitchens who doted on Chirrut when they were children is an old man now, but he still lingers around the kitchen sometimes, criticizing the younger Guardians on their technique and sampling the day’s dinner, but sometimes if Chirrut swings by, he’ll still get a treat anyways. Baze marvels sometimes at how easily Chirrut seems to attract people to him, and he remembers how, as a young man, he wondered how Chirrut could ever have picked him, out of everyone in the entire galaxy. 

Baze sits with Chirrut and eats the sticky, sweet buns that Chirrut manages to sweet talk the old Guardian into giving him and tries not to think of the violence he feels looming over Jedha. And he doesn’t tell Chirrut, not then and maybe not ever, and maybe it’s all for naught because Chirrut has a way of knowing everything without even trying, but he starts collecting and building the pieces of what will become a weapon later that same day. He thinks, at the time, that it’s precautionary, mostly, because who would he be if he let these strangers run amok his streets armed to the teeth with no way of defending himself, but years down the line, he wonders if maybe that’s when it started, just a little bit, if that’s when the violence started creeping into his bones, if that’s when his steadfast faith started leeching away in favor of something more concrete, something he could hold. He supposes he’ll never know, but sometimes, he stares up at the stars dotting the sky above the Holy City, the stars he used to look at with such hope and reverence, and he thinks, _how am I any different from them? How am I any better?_

\---

_Something is coming_ , Chirrut used to always like to say, still likes to say to this day. There’s a humor in it, maybe, that’s turned a little sour in the wake of everything that’s happened, but sometimes Chirrut says it, and Baze thinks of the times that meant that the older Guardians were coming to chide them for staying up past curfew or that someone was about to catch them sneaking down into the kyber crystal chambers. 

_Something is coming_ , Chirrut says in the days leading up to the day Baze thinks of as the tipping point in his life, and Baze thinks sometimes that he’s never felt anything so ominous and so chilling as Chirrut murmuring _something is coming_ as the streets of the Holy City slowly fill with more and more outsiders. Baze thinks this until the day he meets Cassian and Jyn and the shadow of a moon that isn’t a moon falls over the city. He thinks this until he watches his home and his life and his entire way of being vanish into a cloud of smoke and ash. Baze used to think that when Chirrut said _something is coming_ that the occupying forces were as bad as it got, that nothing more could come for them after that, but he watches as his city and its people and the incredible, rich culture that came with it get wiped off the face of the planet as if it were made of nothing more than sand. And then, and only then, does he think, _it’s come for us_ , whatever ‘it’ is.

\---

On the day that everything changes, Baze thinks he can remember feeling something in the air, something like anticipation, or fear. On the day everything changes, Baze thinks in hindsight that he knows, even though he knows he doesn’t, not like Chirrut does, not down to his bones, because there’s always been a little part of him that’s been too hopeful and too earnest and too trusting in the good of the universe. 

That day, they’re walking through one of the winding corridors of the temple, trying to find a quiet place to sit a while and read, and Baze is considering a request one of the elders made of him to maybe take on teaching some of their younger Guardians some of their practices, meditation maybe, or hand-to-hand. Chirrut already teaches hand-to-hand to some of the kids and sometimes guides meditations or readings, has been teaching for years because Chirrut gives and gives and gives like there’s no end to the bounding energy he has within him, and Baze has always abstained because even though he feels and _knows_ in his heart of hearts that the Force that they all believe in is out there, he’s never felt like the teaching type. He’s never been good with words and every time anyone asks him to describe something as intangible as the Force, he feels the sensation swell up in his chest and the certainty in his bones, but he finds that words always fail him. But he thinks to himself that he’s no longer a young man, that he’s well into the fat, happy, long years of adulthood, and he thinks that maybe, it’s time to start trying to give a little after all the Guardians have given him. 

Baze walks, as he often does, lost in thought, following Chirrut almost mindlessly through the temple, trusting that he’ll lead them the right way, and Chirrut suddenly stops, so abruptly that Baze all but runs into him. He blinks, tugging himself away from the heavy web of thoughts that’s settled in the forefront of his mind. He’s about to crack a joke about whether or not Chirrut got distracted halfway through walking with something else or at least ask if he’s okay, but then he catches the look on Chirrut’s face, and it’s like the bottom of his stomach drops out, because he knows from the gravity on Chirrut’s face that things may never be the same again.

“Chirrut?” Baze asks, and hates how quiet his voice comes out, like he’s a scared kid again, facing the uncertainty of the universe alone. 

Chirrut looks almost like he’s made of stone, and when he speaks again, he hardly moves, his voice, too, quiet like any loud noise will shatter even any momentary peace left. “They’re here.”

Chirrut has never said who this ‘they’ is, has never said what kind of thing or beast is coming to end their way of life, but every time Chirrut mentions it, Baze feels something icy drip through his veins. And as Chirrut turns to look at him, Baze starts mentally bracing himself for what’s to come, because as the weight of reality settles over them and they begin to hear booming sounds in the distance that must be the occupying forces moving towards the temple, Chirrut’s face breaks open into an expression of such devastation, such anguish that Baze knows that whatever Chirrut has felt, Chirrut who has always felt more and more often and more strongly than Baze himself, it’s going to ruin all of them, one way or another. 

Baze wants to say something, something like _it’s going to be okay_ or _don’t worry_ , but he’s never in his life lied to Chirrut and it feels wrong to start now, so he just offers a weak smile and prays that the two of them will make it out of this, whatever this is, in one piece. 

“Go get your gun,” Chirrut says, even though Baze has never let Chirrut know that he’s been building a weapon (though he supposes part of him always knew that Chirrut would know, but it seemed unimportant to talk about just a half a minute ago). 

Baze hesitates. “What about you?” he asks, hating the slight shake in his voice. 

Chirrut offers him a smile that’s a pale ghost of his usual, mischievous grin, but it’ll do for now, Baze supposes. Chirrut twirls the staff he’s taken to keeping by his side, and Baze suddenly recognizes it in hindsight for what it is, realizes that they’ve both been doing the same thing, each in their own way, preparing for the end of all things. 

And Baze wants to say now _that’s not a weapon_ or _that will never keep you safe_ , but he thinks maybe faith now is the most important thing they have, and he wouldn’t really believe himself if he said it anyways. Instead, he pulls Chirrut close to press a soft kiss to his mouth, kissing him like it’s the last time they’ll see each other, like he’s trying to convince himself otherwise. 

When he pulls away, he keeps one hand on Chirrut’s jaw and rests his forehead against Chirrut’s like he always does when he’s trying to pretend that the entire universe starts and ends with them. “Be safe,” he says, as if saying it will make it true. 

Chirrut smiles. “Always.”

Baze turns then to run down the hall and up a flight of stairs to his room, and when he glances over his shoulder, Chirrut is running just as quickly in the other direction, shouting at anyone close enough to hear to get ready to fight, to keep the children safe. Baze thinks that he’s never run faster in his life. He grabs his blaster from under his bed, slinging the pack over his shoulder, and, after a second’s thought, grabs the bowcaster he’s been stowing under there since finding it some months ago at a vendor’s stall in the streets of the Holy City. 

Later, Baze doesn’t really remember the details of what happens. Later, it feels like it could almost be a dream, the way that time seems to speed up around him and only pauses on the most important moments. Later, all Baze remembers is the invading forces bursting through the gates of the temple, remembers the anxiety high in his chest at how quickly the clone troopers close in on Chirrut, remembers tossing the bowcaster to Chirrut the first chance he gets, because as he watches Chirrut twirl and fight his way through hordes of clone troopers, barely missing getting shot just one too many times, Baze sees his entire life flash before his eyes. 

“Be careful!” Baze shouts over the roar of the battle around them, and the rumble around the masks how badly his voice shakes, high with panic.

Chirrut spins to hit a clone trooper with his staff as he catches the bowcaster from Baze and immediately snaps it open to fire off a shot. Baze catches the slightly stunned look on Chirrut’s face, and thinks, vaguely, that Chirrut probably planned on going his whole life without taking another life, and, irrationally, feels a moment of guilt, even though he knows that this is the beginning of a war, and there’s no time for guilt in times of war and survival. 

“I _am_ careful,” Chirrut calls back, rousing himself and spinning to take aim at another platoon of clone troopers approaching them. Baze might be imagining it, but he thinks that Chirrut’s voice is just too high, just too panicked, and he wants nothing more than to press pause on everything until the fear has been driven from Chirrut’s chest. 

Baze starts to lose track of things after that. Between trying to hold the temple and trying not to get shot in the process, between wielding this weapon that he’s spent so long building but only thought about using in his worst nightmares, between worrying about what could possibly be going on in the streets of the Holy City, and there are a few moments when Baze almost loses track of Chirrut. He knows, somewhere at the back of his mind, that Chirrut is nearby, that he’s fighting tooth and nail to protect the temple, but there are a few moments Baze can’t keep an eye on him like he usually does, and there’s a moment when Baze feels something sharp ache in his chest. A pop goes off not too far from him and Baze feels the world around him shake as part of the temple comes tumbling down, and he doesn’t know how, because he’s never felt things like Chirrut does, has never been able to feel the world around him as easy as breathing like Chirrut always has, but at that moment, Baze just knows. He feels it, deep into his bones, that something is horribly wrong, and when he whirls around, frantically searching for any sign of Chirrut, heart in his throat, he finds that somewhere in the middle of all the rubble, Chirrut has fallen.

“ _Chirrut!_ ” Baze hears someone yell, only realizing a moment later, as he’s already sprinting over to where Chirrut is, that it was him.

Baze pries the debris from the fallen temple wall off of Chirrut, who’s unconscious and wounded all up his arms and neck and face from where the temple debris flew at him, more than likely before he even had a chance to react, quick as he is. Chirrut’s robes are torn up from where stone shards tugged jagged lines through the thick cloth, and as Baze stares down at Chirrut and carefully cradles him in his lap, Baze feels hot tears well up in his eyes, a dread high in his throat that this will be the end of them yet. But Chirrut’s chest moves just so up and down with his shallow breaths and Baze manages to find a thready pulse fluttering just beneath the skin of Chirrut’s wrist, and even as he hears blasters arming around him, the heavy footsteps of the clone troopers closing in around him, he barely flinches, because it’s like nothing else matters, like nothing else could ever matter. 

“Drop your weapon!” Baze hears one of the clones shout. 

And Baze, who’s spent many months crafting the cannon strapped to his shoulders, who’s never imagined going down in this battle in anything less than a blaze of glory, suddenly finds himself listening. Baze drops the cannon to the ground and unhooks the pack from his back, lifting his hands in a show of surrender, and Baze thinks that if Chirrut weren’t all but dying before him, he’d be balking at his own behavior. But as it is, all Baze can think about is whether or not Chirrut is going to be okay, whether or not Chirrut will ever wake up, what he’s supposed to do with himself if Chirrut isn’t there next to him. Baze has thought through every way this battle could go and planned accordingly, but he never predicted this. Maybe he, too, was too convinced of Chirrut’s seeming invincibility. Maybe he, too, has been just that much too naïve. 

The clones confiscate his weapon but allow the two of them to live, as a punishment perhaps, to see the ruins of their way of life, or as an example, to demonstrate what compliance can buy in this new era. And if Baze had his wits about him enough, he’d probably have a thing or two to say about it, but all he can think about is scooping Chirrut up in his arms and carefully making his way down the many steps to the city streets to find somewhere to care for Chirrut. 

By the time he makes it down, whatever fight the locals put up has been thoroughly quashed. Baze can see the smoldering remains of tents and stalls he used to love perusing in his spare time – the old woman who sold the freshest fruit in town, regardless of the season or the inhospitable climate; the young family who sold trinkets and charms to bring good fortune and prosperity; the brother and sister who spent their days picking at broken things with nimble fingers until they were fixed again – and he feels hollow and heavy all at once, knowing that this will never truly feel like the place he called home again. News has spread quickly through the streets that the Guardians have fallen, but the people he passes on the street still look at him with respect and offer to help (there are some things, he thinks, even force can’t take). 

He manages to find a small back room of someone’s house where they’ll let them stay for at least the next few days, and Baze is too tired and too hollow to try to find anything better. He instead sets Chirrut down on a rickety cot in the room and does what he can to clean Chirrut’s wounds using various herbs and salves that some of the remaining people in the streets pressed into his hands or slipped into his pockets. The owner of the house comes and brings some clean bandages for Baze to patch up the worst of it, and by the time night falls, Baze thinks he’s probably done all that he can. He knows there will be no help sent to them, that what he can do is all there is left, and as he bows his head down to sleep, sitting on the floor next to the bed and cradling his head in his arms on the edge of the bed, he feels something drain out of him. 

Baze thinks about that first time he saw all the threads in the universe and he thinks now, even if he could summon up the energy to find it, there wouldn’t be any point anymore, because everything feels torn and frayed. Baze drifts off to sleep thinking about the warm blue crystals in the heart of the temple and Chirrut’s excited eyes, and he thinks about how that will never be anymore. He thinks about that whole life he’ll never get to have, growing old with Chirrut at the temple, teaching generation after generation what it means to believe. He thinks about it all night, and when he wakes up, he finds that any remaining shreds of faith he had left in him have disappeared, replaced only with a sort of bitterness that can’t be stamped out. If this is the way it’s going to be then this is a time of war, and Baze doesn’t have it in him to make the space for both faith and fighting, because when he tries to find that calm, still part of himself, all he can think about is the clones attacking the temple, the clones attacking their home. The Guardians will surely dissolve now, under threat of death, and the temple is in ruins, and Baze thinks, looking at Chirrut’s prone body, _I have nothing left but this_.

Chirrut stirs suddenly, and Baze immediately sits up, gathering what little medicine he has left to treat Chirruts hurts, anything he missed, anything that’s still painful. Chirrut blinks his eyes open slowly at first and then more insistently, and then he sits up suddenly and looks around. Baze holds his breath, feeling like he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Baze?” he croaks after a long moment, his voice hoarse and tired. “Is it night?”

Baze feels the bottom of his stomach drop. “It’s morning,” he says softly, and as he says it, Chirrut’s face shifts like he knows, like he, too, can hear the quiet rustle of the marketplace out on the streets, muted since the attack on the temple but surely there nonetheless. 

Chirrut lifts a hand to touch his own face, fingertips touching down on the bruising blooming up his cheek and over his eye, the cuts from the fight just beginning to heal. He frowns, like he was half expecting something to be obstructing his eyes, and Baze feels something in him break.

“Chirrut,” he breathes out and reaches over to tip Chirrut’s face towards him. Sure enough, there amongst the cuts and bruises Chirrut has all over his body, his eyes are starting to look cloudy and grey. Baze feels a sob get stuck in his throat. How had he not noticed before? How could he be so awful at taking care of the man he loves so much? 

Chirrut smiles then, and Baze feels the hot tears spill over his cheeks, half in anguish that there were wounds that slipped his notice and half in an odd sort of heartbreak at how much, even now, Chirrut always seems to be the one reassuring _him_. Chirrut lifts a hand to run through Baze’s tangled hair, bumping his fingertips along Baze’s chin and cheek along the way, and he tips his head closer to Baze’s so their foreheads touch. Chirrut closes his eyes then and breathes slowly, in and out like he’s trying to calm something within him, and Baze thinks that this is only the beginning. He wonders when Chirrut’s tears will come, when the growing pains at adjusting to a new way of life will catch up to him, but for now, he just holds Chirrut close and presses messy kisses all over Chirrut’s face and knows that whatever happens, at the very least they’ll get to face it together. 

“All is as the Force wills it,” Chirrut says, and he means it, as always, like a promise.

And for the first time in his life, Baze finds that he doesn’t quite believe Chirrut’s words anymore.

\---

Years later, in a cage in a cave, when a man no more faithful than him scoffs and teases at his lost faith, Baze thinks of his younger self, thinks of the young man who wanted to believe so much in something, anything, and all he can do is laugh. Years later, in a cage in a cave, Baze thinks that it seems like another lifetime. Years later, as Chirrut prays for release in this rebel outpost, Baze looks at the man that he loves, the man whose faith has never once wavered, who believes in the guiding force of the universe like this is the one true thing in the world, and he feels something warm in his chest, the love that he’s managed to salvage from the wreckage of his faith, of his life, and he thinks to himself that if there was one thing left at the end of everything that he’d believe in, it’d be Chirrut himself. This, at least, has never been a question.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments/kudos are very very much appreciated! 
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](http://jessica-henwicks.tumblr.com) if you like!!


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